Project Closure in PRINCE2
A very important point needs to be made here. If the project, within any management stage, needs project closure as a premature close, then the closing a project process (CP) is used.
Let us suppose that a given project has three delivery stages after the initiation stage.
In the final delivery stage, work packages containing information on the specialist products to be created will be issued and managed within the last delivery stage.
However, once the final specialist product within the final work package has been approved, then the project manager will commence project closure and trigger the closing a project (CP) processes to shut the project down in a controlled manner.
A final management stage is not used to merely to use the Closing a Project process, rather, the final delivery stage will include the project closure activities. In summary, the final stage of a project will use the Controlling a Stage, Managing Product Delivery, and Closing a Project processes.
Assuming a natural project closure, then the prepare planned closure activity will be used. The project manager would use Project Support as they provide Configuration Management, and request a product status account to ensure that all products within the project would have been approved and that the project acceptance criteria have been met. The Project Plan should be updated with the ‘actuals’ of this final stage.
Do not underestimate the power and use of Configuration Management as part of project closure. Their job is to confirm that the status of all products is set to ‘approved’, and this is normally provided by Project Support.
You need to check that the project meets the Acceptance Criteria contained within the Project Product Description, and these need to be handed over as part of project closure. Another key aspect is to ensure that the project deliverables or products have all been signed off.
The latest Checkpoint Report from the specialist team or the Team Manager will provide the latest information on product completion, and should be referred to here as an aid to project closure.
PRINCE2 Project Closure – The loose ends
The projects products must now be handed over to the operational and maintenance environment as part of project closure, where they will be used to ultimately realize the benefits contained as stated within the Business Case.
The project manager would updates relevant configuration item records in project closure to show that such products have the status of ‘operational’, any acceptance records should be created or obtained, and the Benefits Management Approach updated to reflect any products that have already realized benefits and to include any post project activities for such benefits that have yet to be realized.
The re-evaluate the project activity will create the end of project report to capture actual progress and aspects such as project performance metrics, and will include the Lessons Report based upon the information contained within the Lessons Log.
In the case of project closure needing a premature close, then the reasons for this should be entered and updated on the Issue Register, and if necessary any additional work may be needed to buy the complete unfinished products or to make them safe.
There is a chance that if such extra activities are large, then the tolerance of the last stage may be exceeded, and which case project closure will be put on hold while, the project board consider what to do next with based on the Exception Report that the project manage will have raised
Once the project manager has determined that the project should and can be closed, then a recommendation of such should be raised to the project board in the form of a closure recommendation.
The final activity in any project, is the authorize project closure within the Directing a Project process.
The project board would need to:
- review original and updated versions of the PID
- review and approve the End Project Report
- confirm any follow-on actions or loose ends
- verify that the projects products have been handed over in an appropriate manner
- ensure that the Business Case remains viable
- advise that the project can now be closed
- advise those supplier resources that these can now be withdrawn.
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